The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that health care added 31,300 jobs in July – over a quarter of the new jobs added in the US.

The underlying problem is likely that we aren’t adding enough jobs in the rest of the economy.There are good reasons why we might be adding more jobs in health care than elsewhere – as our population ages.

Still, this is a great illustration of our mixed emotions about the cost of health care.As long as health care is adding 26.8% the new jobs in our economy , the cost of health care will continue to grow at a faster rate than the overall economy.

A brief personal note.The Pan Mass Challenge was a great ride this past weekend – about 190 miles cycling from Sturbridge to Provincetown, and about $30 million raised for cancer research.I had three flat tires, and the sky sprinkled us a bit –but the rain held out until after we reached the end of the ride. A few hundred of the ~5000 riders were cancer survivors, and cancer has touched all of our lives. I spend a lot of my time most weeks thinking about how to make health care cost a bit less.From my saddle, I spent this past weekend thinking about how we have to invest more in research so that more people who are afflicted with cancer can live long, normal, healthy lives.